GUPTE: Does the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon mean that you will be able to transform a turbulent area into a promising economic zone? HOSS: I think all of Lebanon will become a unified economic zone attractive to foreign and domestic investment. If the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon leads to stability, it will give a new image about Lebanon abroad to encourage investors and tourists to come here.

How do you propose to rebuild the south? We have reconstruction planned specifically for the south prepared by the United Nations Development Program. There’s interest on the part of various donor countries to participate in financing this plan. One of the first donors we’ve heard from is Japan–actually, they have repeatedly told us that they are ready to share in any plan for reconstruction in the south after the liberation. We heard also from Italy, and lately we heard from the European Union. So the south is in a good position for a reconstruction plan to be implemented.

What’s holding back economic progress in your country? We’ve been attracting the wrong sort of headlines because of the 22-year Israeli occupation of south Lebanon and repeated acts of aggression by Israel against Lebanon. Our present government has been in office for a year and a half now, and in this time we have had three large-scale attacks by Israel. These are very destructive in terms of Lebanon’s image abroad.

But the Israelis couldn’t be the only reason. Of course not. Lebanon has been suffering from a recession for the last few years, most particularly since 1995. Government administration leaves a lot to be desired. We’re a lovely country with great potential, and manpower is quite advanced as compared with that of other countries.

What explains your recession? The causes of the recession are many. One is the fact that Lebanon flourished before the civil war, that is, before 1975, and served the role of the middleman and center of services for the whole Middle East. During the civil war Lebanon lost this role, and has not recovered it–even now, 10 years after the cessation of hostilities in Lebanon. Those who used to come to Lebanon for such services as banking now have their own banks and their own connections with banking centers in the outside world, in the West particularly. Ever since the war years, the Treasury lost much of its resources. The major item of revenue for the Treasury has always been customs revenue, which constitutes between 50 and 55 percent of the total official revenues. Finally, there is a large Lebanese diaspora living in the gulf and doing quite well. We used to get a lot of investment from Arab companies, from particularly the gulf. Well, the gulf has actually had its own economic problems as a result of repeated gulf crises. These problems have reflected adversely on the Lebanese economy.

Do you see Lebanon recovering its role as the nerve point of the Middle East? I think we cannot recover the same role if we want to develop Lebanon again as a hub. Our dream is to develop Lebanon as a center for information technology and telecommunications serving the whole Middle East.

What are you doing to encourage foreign investment? We are trying to tell the world that even though there are almost daily events going on in the south of Lebanon, that’s only 10 to 15 percent of our country. The rest of Lebanon is peaceful. We are addressing ourselves also to European and American firms, because we are interested in their investments and in their technology. We have to benefit from their technology. So we are opening up. We have always been an open economy. We think our investment climate is good generally. You know, this is one of the very few countries in the whole region that has not experimented with socialism ever. Freedom and liberalism [are] deep-rooted in Lebanon.

Is Lebanon’s civil war truly behind you? I think the dissensions and divisions that Lebanon experienced during the civil war, and before it actually, are now a matter of the past. There is a consensus among the Lebanese now as to national issues. We have an embryo of a democratic system, which we hope we will be able to develop. It leaves a lot to be desired. I’m the one who said once [that] in Lebanon there is plenty of freedom, but little democracy. I think our salvation is in a more democratic society–everybody recognizes that. And everybody recognizes the need to respect human rights. So we hope that this is a unifying factor among the Lebanese.